Summer School

Home today packing for my next three days in Sydney. A new month so I need to do a lot of printing for class. A note for correspondence school your patterns will be posted on Monday. I ran out of time to do it today, apparently my sons told me there was nothing to eat in the house so they could starve! There is a full fruit bowl but that's not food...
Summer School will run from Wednesday the 18th of January to the 22nd of January.
A little later than before but the Mountains has a christian conference at the beginning of January and that runs to the 14th so we had to be well clear of it as all the accommodation is taken.
Hope this helps with bookings and flights.
Lets look at more quilts.
These photos are from Cottage Quilt Works located on the beautiful Northern Beaches, for those of you overseas this is where they film Home And Away. The shop and class room are lovely and the girls really had some wonderful show and tell.
This is Sue Brooke's Maria Hanks. I think originally this design came out in 2005 but Sue started last year so she has done well to finish so quickly. Such beautiful applique and her colours sing on her background.

Wendy finished her star quilt.

Heather Waugh's Yorkshire Dales Quilt.

Terri Hennessy with her Sampler.

Our new girl last year Maree Mackinnon with the centre of Blue Bell.

Here are Gina and Heather working very hard in class.

 My Sampler.

Please let me know if there is anything you would like to see or hear about until next time,

Karen

                                                                                                                     

Southern Highlands.

I love teaching in the southern Highlands as It does feel a bit like being home. The temperature is cooler and  Mittagong is such a beautiful small village. I have been teaching in this area for approximately ten years so  I feel almost local. I have my favourite dress shop there Auberjean which has clothes that actually fit and look good on someone my age mix that with good old fashioned customer service and a new outfit usually comes home with me. Timeless Threads is a beautiful shop, the building is called The Boston Ivy the photo below is the back of the building, the class room is on the right.

This is Vanessa's Bumble bee and her mosaic quilt in progress.

Jacqui's Bumble bee.

Hilda has worked very hard completing The Jester quilt.

Vanessa on the left, Hilda trying to hide.

This is one of my Jester quilt blocks, I have to admit mine is not finished!

And someone who has finished the Jester Terry's beautiful quilt, all hand quilted.

I still have more from Mittagong to come and then five more class news to finish off February.
What a fantastic month it has been so much to see, so many new fabrics to buy and new quilts to start.
I also hope to have the dates for Summer School this week for those wanting to book accommodation.
Good night everyone
Karen

My day at home.

I don’t know if everyone else loves a day at home as much as I do, the older I get the simplest things I do seem to make me the happiest.

Perhaps being on the road as much as I am also gives me an appreciation of a day like today. I love to feed my Magpie family in the morning just to hear them sing, I drink probably way too much tea but love my china cups and of course lovely embroidered tray runners and doilies, do you feel the urge to rescue any beautiful embroidered linen in antique shops, or is it just me? I then like a few hours sewing usually watching a Jane Austen movie with my cat Ruskin to keep me company. Finally all my children will be home for tea, with two now living away from home it is lovely to have all four around the table.

More class news next time,

Happy stitching to you all

Karen

My Jane Austen Quilt.

Blueberries.

We had a lovely three days in Wyong, lots of homework done and chatter about our Christmas holidays.
First we have Gloria's Agnes quilt, the hexagons for this quilt are approximately 2 inches so the blocks are huge and easy to piece, you also get to use loads of fabric from your stash.

Pam had her quarter inch hexagons ready to sew on the Folk Art quilt, apparently her family are a little worried she has spent so much time on something so small, seems normal to me.
There is a five cent coin to show you the size of the finished hexagon, I love making these.

Thank you to Vicky White who made me a few quarter inch rosettes for my quilt.
Here is Lisa Egan working away on her Folk Art quilt, she makes the most beautiful quilts and always has us laughing every month, a real joy to have her in my classes she is one of my original students, so we have also become good friends.

This is Sue Allsbury's Cream Tea, Sue loves to fussy cut and as you can see even cuts up the paper hexagon and pieces them back together to form stripes and amazing rosettes, she really makes her quilts works of art, I could spend all day looking at her work.

One of Sue's rosettes.

Another centre of Cream Tea by Helen Roberts.

And finally this is what happens to my classroom when the shop has new Yuwa fabrics.

They were really beautiful so we all bought some!

Favourite Designs.

My son has my camera at the moment taking photos of new tattoos he is designing, so I will post the photos from Blueberries on Thursday.
I thought I would post the two most popular quilt patterns.
The Trundel was the second quilt I designed and taught, so nervous when I first started to teach but had such lovely students they made it easy for me to relax and enjoy the journey. Twelve years later and still teaching the Trundle, some girls still making their Trundel, no names of course.

English Autumn is ten years old and seems to be the quilters quilt, no one wants to give this one away so it is usually kept for the maker.
One of the best compliments I can remember was from Anne when she finished her English Autumn, she said it was like reading a good book she just couldn't put it down and was sorry it came to an end.

Hope you enjoy the pics, home sewing today lovely rain and cool weather.
Thank you all for your comments and emails I will answer all your emails soon.
Karen

English Autumn

The Trundle.

Robyn to the rescue.

There was plenty of jokes on Saturday and many excuses as not many finished quilts after the holidays, Prue and Di wanted a special mention as their homework was bringing yummy slice and cakes for morning tea, a very important aspect of class.
And then Robyn came to the rescue with two finished quilts.
Yorkshire Dales, a replica of a quilt in the York Castle Museum England.

Irish circles.

.What can I say it is just such a wonderful feeling when you have completed two quilts, and for tutors it is so nice seeing your patterns being enjoyed and turned into quilts that reflect the owners tastes and style.
I am away for the next three days to Blueberries in Wyong I hope to bring lots of photos and news from my classes there.
Thank you for all the lovely emails and comments I really feel more comfortable knowing you are all enjoying my photos, until next time,
Karen

Glenbrook Saturday

Two lovely quilts to show you from class.

This is Kerrie Mckeon's Nancy Horsfall quilt. I love this little quilt.

                                            







The picture below is my version.

Rhonda who is renowned for her lovely hexagon quilts such as insanity has completed another beautiful mosaic quilt, this is a smaller version of an antique quilt she bought in the U.S last year.
The pattern is available from her shop Post Office Patchwork Glenbrook.

As we are looking at mosaics I thought I would add one of my own quilts, this is Bumble-Bee a quilt I designed after my trip to England.
I noticed a few of the medallion quilts I saw had borders added to the centre piece sides first then top and bottom rows, I thought this was an interesting design element as most medallions add borders each side of a centre panel.

Just a reminder that my original Quilt designs and images are copyright protected.

Classes have started

I thought I would post quilts and tops that have been completed in the summer break, only two shops so far and two beautiful quilts to show you.

  Lyn Leighton from the Wednesday class at Quiltsmith made Buttercup for her granddaughter Zoe who is 4 years old and lives in Vancouver.
Lyn will hand-quilt her top and knowing Lyn it will not take long to complete.
Buttercup was designed in 2004 and is still very popular in class today.

Elaine Hart from the patchwork plus class finished her cream tea, so many hexagons!
The quilting is an all over pattern commercially machine quilted and looks and feels beautiful.
Cream tea is a replica of a quilt I saw at the Quilters Guild of the British Isles.
Looking forward to Glenbrook tomorrow!

I bought this lovely fabric in beechworth and loved the star block I achived.